One Man, Scorned and Covered With Scars
by horseplay
Summary: Inspired to the finale. Mostly covers insight into Will's mind between 5/1 and The Greater Fool, alters just the final minutes of the finale in the way a Will/Mac fan wanted it be. Centers around how Will felt when he learned Mackenzie hadn't heard the voicemail.


**Just something I came up with after the Newsroom finale. I . . . don't really do this sort of thing, ever. But I figured I could contribute something here, our fandom seems rather small around these parts. Not a writer, just the production of a bored fan anticipating 9 long months until season 2. Be nice, please. Will's perspective. Jumps around a bit.  
**

"Do you want to end up like him and me?"

Will winced as he wondered when Mackenzie had grown comfortable enough, familiar even, with the tense and previously unspoken of stagnant non-relationship they found themselves in. To casually throw the state of their relationship out in the air to Jim, in front of him no less, seemed abrupt, harsh, and unlike Mac. But, Will supposed everyone had her limit.

It wasn't the sentiment behind the statement that hurt. She meant that she was unhappy with where they were, which was fair enough. But there was a certain finality about the way she said it, to "end up like us" suggested that they were the model of a hopeless case, at the end.

And weren't they? As much as Dr. Habib's conclusion that Will couldn't forgive Mac because she had betrayed and not rejected him, that was not the whole truth. Only Will and Mac knew that only two months ago, Mac had rejected him gracefully, silently, and like a knife to the heart. She had done as he had requested: if she wasn't interested, never mention it, don't call back, pretend it never happened. Pretend that he hadn't declared his undying love on a voicemail, pretend that she wasn't the one, and pretend that they would continue as they had been.

But it's impossible to continue as you have once you've been rejected and betrayed. So Will took his punishment up a level. Hiring Brian was amping the punishment up more than a level; this was not getting the better of an exchange during a broadcast, or parading inferior women through the newsroom. This was custom designed to hurt and embarrass Mackenzie as much as possible.

And of course it was punishment for the original crime. But wasn't it prompted by this new rejection? For the first time, Will began to gain a sliver of insight into the pain that had begun this mess in the first place. Rejection is a powerful feeling that drives you to do stupid, hurtful things to the person you love the most. His hurtful act could hardly be compared to hers, but the parallel did not escape him.

So two days later, despite his own attempt to pretend he had never left the voicemail, he forced himself bring it up to Mac under the unlikely scenario that she had the ability to be hurtful enough to play it for someone else. As much as he felt like he couldn't sink any lower—depressed, in the hospital, humiliated in print, rejected and betrayed—he instinctively didn't want to be fired even from a job he wasn't sure he could bring himself to return to. And as much as bringing up the voicemail could be the final step into quicksand that would pull him down so deep he could never recover, some part of Will wanted Mackenzie to at least acknowledge it (despite his instructions not to if she didn't feel the same). Her behavior, her speeches, and the way she looked at him suggested a very different answer than her silence gave.

When Mackenzie guilelessly looked into Will's eyes and insisted there she never received a message from him that night, he felt like he'd been given a new lease on life. All at once, the confirmation they had so needed from Soloman had fallen into their laps, the evil nurse had given him the perfect story to return to work with, and Mackenzie had not never received the message.

He had been vulnerable to her. For so many months, he had had the upper hand in their relationship, though he rarely played it. The power of her sin, the greatest regret of her life, had left her vulnerable to him, and that voicemail had reversed the status quo. He was safe from her quiet, graceful, painful rejection. And even more, she had never rejected him in the first place.

When Will charged out of bed quoting _Man of La Mancha_, the combination of regret for having brought Brain back into their lives and self-blame for the article and the tailspin he had dragged himself into along with the painkillers made him dizzy. Only a second, though, and with Mac there to support him he could do anything, including defying doctors' orders.

He was relieved she never heard the message, because, just like a racist pre-empts a racist comment with, "I'm not racist but," Will had left that message because he was high. No doubt he was in love with her, but he hadn't forgiven her.

But after the broadcast, after he had saved his job, then almost simultaneously risked it with a full assault on the Tea Party, after he and Mac had hired the sorority girl whose question had started this all, he looked up to see Mac slip into his office. Will nodded for her to sit down, and they sat for a beat, in the same positions they'd been many times since that first day when Will had been so angry to find Mac in his newsroom. The day he'd bitterly and sarcastically told her something he meant to tell her genuinely now.

"You never heard the message." Will said it with significance, knowing it would drive her even more insane than she already was.

"No. I believe we have established that I never heard the message! What was—"

"You have no idea how I've longed to hear those words."

Mackenzie considered him, thinking. "You said that to me a long time ago now. About something else. And you didn't mean it."

"I mean it now. Do you remember what I said after that?"

Mackenzie hesitated. "Y-yes, I think so. You told me very sarcastically that you'd forgiven me."

"Now I mean it. Or, I'm trying to forgive you. I am."

Even Mackenzie couldn't conjure an answer to this. She looked at him desperately, frustrated, wanting to ask any and all questions. But, what came out was simply, "When? Since bin Laden? Since Brian? When?"

Will stood up and walked over to the other side of his desk. Leaning slightly against it, he pulled Mackenzie to him. Only an hour ago he'd stopped himself from putting his hands on her face as she revealed his state of mental health had been much better than he'd imagined 18 months ago. He didn't stop now as he stopped her next question with his own mouth. After a moment they stopped only for breath, Will's forehead leaning on hers. He pulled back, tilted her chin so she would meet his eyes, and answered her question:

"I just decided to."


End file.
